Natural gas prices are at $2.36/MMBtu, and rig counts are at 254, up 10 from last month.

It’s been an interesting month for energy. Hurricane Laura hit, the industry seems to be turning around as demand ramps back up, West Virginia’s Governor got into a little tiff with Brooke County, West Virginia–as in the whole county, Libya seems poised for peace and oil production, and Hurricane Sally is about to hit. Read on for details!

The Houston Chronicle is saying that by the end of the third quarter of 2020, all of the wells that have been shut-in because of the slowdown in the economy will have been turned back on.

Antero is raising money to pay for old debts by creating new debts.

If you want to dive into the science that these oil and gas companies do when planning and drilling wells, this is a good article for you.

The demand for natural gas liquids has rebounded far more quickly than the demand for oil or natural gas.

The natural gas fired energy plant that’s planned for Brooke County is now on the ropes. The State of West Virginia has backed out of a promise to guarantee a $5,000,000.00 loan for the project. The reason cited in the article is that the State hadn’t been given enough assurance that the majority of workers would be West Virginians. That’s really short-sighted. Either somebody is badly informed regarding this project as a whole, or there’s some political wrangling going on in the background that we won’t ever get to see. Politics is rather like making sausage, after all.

The Mountain Valley Pipeline has requested a two-year extension on permits needed to complete its construction.

West Virginia Governor Jim Justice was questioned about the decision to back out of guaranteeing the loan on the Brooke County power plant. We find his answers to be rather…..questionable…..in the sense that most of his answers were in the form of questions that he says he wants answers to. Really? At this point in the process? Hmmmm.

The United States set a record for daily natural gas power burn in July. That was unexpected!

Some Brooke County public officials responded to some of Jim Justice’s questions.

Elba Island’s tenth and final LNG train went online!

Hurricane Laura hit the Gulf Coast, killing people, destroying property, and disrupting the natural gas liquefaction plants located there. The most fascinating stat is that 85% of oil and 59% of natural gas wells in the Gulf Coast area were shut-in because of this, but the price of those products didn’t skyrocket. Used to be, it would have. Horizontal fracking has made our energy economy more robust. That’s good for consumers.

Jim Justice clarified some of his statements. He still doesn’t seem to understand natural gas pipelines in relation to the shape and topography of his state in the northern panhandle. Someone needs to show him a map of the Rover pipeline. Oh look! I found one online in less than 10 seconds. What in the world is he up to?

Hurricane Laura didn’t do any actual damage to the Sabine Pass LNG plant.

Oil production in the United States is likely to see a significant decline in the next few months. Natural gas production will also decline, both because some natural gas is always produced with oil, and because natural gas plays are experiencing many of the same market forces that oil is right now.

There haven’t been as many mergers in the oil and gas patch as people were expecting. That’s interesting because mergers are usually the result of a bankrupt company being absorbed by a more financially healthy one.

Libya has been in civil war for almost a decade. There is currently a cease fire in place, and more than one interested party is pushing for permanent peace, including the Italians. If peace breaks out, Libya would start producing oil again.

The President of the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce wrote an op-ed in support of the Brooke County power plant. He points out that this type of power plant is coming, and if it’s not built in West Virginia it will be built somewhere else.

We don’t usually get into politics, but this piece deals simply and apolitically with Joe Biden’s stance on fracking, and explains why he won’t (and in fact, can’t) ban fracking entirely. It’s pretty free of political rhetoric, and explains why I wasn’t hyped up about a Republican winning last time, and why I’m not worried about a Democrat winning this time.

As an aside, and this is the one and only subject on which I’ll get into politics outside of energy policy on this forum, I strongly encourage you all to vote third party, because if you think about it, your vote counts for a lot more when you vote third party than if you vote for one of the two majors. I won’t be discussing politics in the comment section. Now, back to oil and gas.

A wastewater injection well may be leaking wastewater into a formation that other gas wells are producing from.

King coal could be influencing Governor Justice to slow down the Brooke County power plant.

The State approved the loan guarantee.

The West Virginia Coal Association wrote a letter opposing the power plant.

It looks like Libya really is going to start producing oil again.

Hurricane Sally is approaching the Gulf Coast.